By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, NOV 25, 2024: SHRI Manohar Lal, Union Minister of Power and Housing & Urban Affairs, on Saturday flagged-off the fleet of green hydrogen buses of NTPC at Leh in the presence of senior officials of Ministry of Power, Leh Administration and NTPC. 

After the flag-off, Union Minister travelled 12 km in one of the H2 buses from the H2 filling station to the Leh airport.

Union Minister congratulated NTPC for its unique contribution to the energy security and decarbonisation efforts  of the country through adoption of hydrogen technologies at various fronts like mobility, blending with PNG, green methanol and its overall thrust on RE.

The Green Hydrogen Mobility Project at Leh comprises in-situ 1.7 MW solar plant, Green hydrogen filling station of capacity 80 kg/day and 5 hydrogen intra-city buses. Each bus can cover 300 km per single filling of hydrogen of 25 kg.  This is also the world's highest altitude (3650m MSL) Green Hydrogen Mobility Project that is designed to operate in low density air, sub-zero temperature and can fill hydrogen at 350 bar pressure.

This station shall mitigate the carbon emissions of approx. 350 MT/year and contribute  230 MT/year of pure oxygen into the atmosphere which is equal to planting of approx. 13000 trees.

Potential of green hydrogen mobility solution in Ladakh is very strong considering the high solar irradiance  with low temperature, a sweet spot for producing the solar power and green hydrogen efficiently. Production and utilisation of this green fuel at these locations would avoid the fossil fuel logistics and make the locations self-sufficient in terms of energy requirement.

NTPC  is setting up more hydrogen mobility projects across India in addition to deployment of various green hydrogen technologies, rapidly scaling up of RE capacity including setting up of  hydrogen hub in Andhra Pradesh.